UP is India's communal cauldron, tops deaths..

The Uttar Pradesh government has been on the firing line of the opposition for its inability to get a grip on law & order. Statistics of communal violence tabled this week in Parliament indicate the opposition may not be off the mark.

The Uttar Pradesh government has been on the firing line of the opposition for its inability to get a grip on law & order. Statistics of communal violence tabled this week in Parliament indicate the opposition may not be off the mark.

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Every third death in a communal incident in the country this year occurred in UP, killing 34 people in the state as compared to 89 people who lost their lives in communal violence across the country this year.

The increase in incidents and deaths was enough to worry the Prime Minister too.

PM Manmohan Singh told a conference of police chiefs this September that the communal situation was “already showing some signs of deterioration”. Singh had named UP, along with Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Kerala that were high on his list of worries.

Except 2 deaths, the remaining 32 deaths in UP took place between April-October 2012 well after Akhilesh Yadav was sworn-in as chief minister in mid-March.
Not surprisingly, Yadav sees the spike in communal violence as a “well planned conspiracy”.

Last year, only 12 people had died in communal violence in UP. Also, there were barely 84 incidents of violence in the entire, much lower than 104 incidents in the first 10 months of this year.

But 2011 was an unusually peaceful year in UP in terms of lives lost in communal violence. UP was a state preparing for a regime change.

Uttar Pradesh had recorded the highest number of deaths in communal violence during 2005-2009 too, killing 176 people. Across the country, 648 people were killed during this period in 4,030 incidents of communal violence. Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Orissa had the next highest number of casualties.

Police officers insist demonstration of zero tolerance by the political leadership was, however, very important in checking such violence before it gets out of hand, something that was perceived to be missing in the first few months when the young chief minister was settling down.